A supermarket in London held an anniversary celebration, giving away cooking oil, fish, and other food for free, attracting a large number of customers. However, after the event video was posted online, what people focused on was something else: male customers lined up on one side, while female customers and children lined up on the other, with a row of freezers in between.

This scene took place at the Masala Bazaar supermarket in Romford, East London. At the time, the store was celebrating its third anniversary.

On August 28, staff distributed bottled vegetable oil to customers in line. In the video, long queues are lined up on both sides of the freezer, with men on one side and women and children on the other.

Two days later, when the supermarket held a fish promotion event, the scene of men and women queuing separately appeared again.

Why are men and women separated when picking things up at the supermarket? The video quickly sparked discussion, and some netizens questioned how such a scene could appear in a British store.

A netizen wrote: 'No law says that England will implement separate queues for men and women.'

A woman who has lived in Romford all her life and works at a local gym also said, 'Just seeing such a long line makes me not want to go. I've never seen anything like this in other stores.'

However, the store denied requiring men and women to queue separately, emphasizing that there were no relevant signs on site, and no such in-store policy or religious regulation existed.

Store manager Zayuber explained to the Daily Mail that during the anniversary celebration, there were too many people, so the store arranged a 'limited-time free gift event.' Everyone wanted to claim something, and the scene became very chaotic at one point.

"Some people still want to take more than their fair share. We tell customers they need to queue, but we can't control them."

He said, 'Everyone naturally lined up with the men on one side and the women on the other. About a minute later, everyone mixed together again.'

Another clerk stated that the anniversary celebration runs from August 26 to 31, and the video was filmed during this period.

"We are giving out cooking oil, fish, quiches, grapes, and cookies for free, and it's very busy on site."

"There were simply too many people gathered around, so we had to arrange two lines to distribute the food more quickly."

As for why it ended up with men and women forming separate rows, he said, 'Men stand together with men, women stand together with women. We didn't tell anyone where to stand; they arranged themselves that way.'

A staff member also responded on social media, stating that the anniversary promotion had attracted a large number of customers, causing severe congestion. On behalf of the supermarket, he thanked the customers and apologized for the mistakes and shortcomings in the organization of the event.

Masala Bazaar mainly sells halal meat and South Asian ingredients and is part of the Euro Foods Group. The group's founder, Shelim Hussain, was born in Bangladesh and is a British entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of £105 million. In addition to Romford, the company also operates supermarkets in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport.

The report also mentioned that the population composition of Romford has changed significantly in recent years. The proportion of the local white population has dropped from 95.2% in 2001 to 75.3%, while the proportion of the Asian population has risen from 2.1% to 10.7%. Many long-term residents have moved to the neighboring county of Essex.

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